15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) -- #11 Carolyn Arends, "Reaching"

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to. 

These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs

#11 - Reaching by Carylon Arends

This one and an upcoming one are probably the most religious songs on this list, and primarily because they stirred in me spiritual seeking rather than actual any kind of doctrinal leanings. They taught me to seek truth, not systems or organizations. This one in particular always reinforced for me that there really is a truth with a capital T. We are just in the wrong place to explain it or put it in a box now. It's like the color blue to me. Whatever you choose to call it, or however you define it, there is an intrinsic "something" that we relate to as blue. This song reminds me that it's not just blue that fits that understanding for me. 

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There's a time I can recall

Four years old and three feet tall

Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar

And both were out of reach

And later on in my high school

It seemed to me a little cruel

How the right words to say always seemed to stay

Just out of reach

Well, I should not have thought it strange

That growing causes growing pains

'Cause the more we learn the more we know

We don't know anything

But still it seems a tragic fate

Living with this quiet ache

The constant strain for what remains

Just out of reach

We are reaching for the future

We are reaching for the past

And no matter what we have we reach for more

We are desperate to discover

What is just beyond our grasp

But maybe that's what Heaven is for

There are times I can't forget

Dressed up in my Sunday best

Trying not to squirm and to maybe learn

A bit of what the preacher preached

And later lying in the dark

I felt a stirring in my heart

And though I longed to see what could not be seen

I still believed

I guess, I shouldn't think it odd

Until we see the face of God

The yearning deep within us tells us

There's more to come

So when we taste of the divine

It leaves us hungry every time

For one more taste of what awaits

When Heaven's Gates are reached

We are reaching for the future

We are reaching for the past

And no matter what we have, we reach for more

We are desperate to discover

What is just beyond our grasp

But maybe that's what Heaven is for

I believe that's what Heaven is for

There's a time I can recall

Four years old and three feet tall

Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar

And both were out of reach